Carson girls volleyball team takes a set from No. 1 Palisades, but falls in semifinals

Carson High girls volleyball coach Christy North felt that if the Colts were going to beat No. 1-seeded Palisades, it was going to have to take the Dolphins to five sets.

Carson came up a set short.

After a rousing five-set victory over El Camino Real in the quarterfinals, No. 4-seeded Carson came out strong against Palisades, taking a lead deep into the first set and winning the second before falling 25-21, 19-25, 25-13, 25-11 in the L.A. City Section Division I semifinals on Tuesday night at Palisades High.

Carson’s downfall might have been its inability to close out the first set when it had the chance. Carson took a 10-6 lead on a kill by Fa’aaliga Mikaele, a 17-14 lead on a kill by Naomi Tanaka and a 21-19 lead on a kill by Natalie Leui-Saole.

Then Palisades (21-5-2) closed the set by going on a 6-0 run, tying the score 21-21 on an ace by Lucy Polhill and closing it out on a block by Sasha Gorlik.

The first-set loss could have been deflating, but Carson found life and came back from an 8-4 deficit in the second set. Three consecutive kills by Mikaele and a block by Leui-Saole gave the Colts a 14-11 lead.

Carson opened up a 22-13 lead after a block and a kill by Leui-Saole and a block by Hillary Edior. Tanaka closed out the set with a kill to tie the score in the match 1-1.

“In the second set we came out with a lot of energy,” Leui-Saole said. “Coming that close in the first set made us realize we can play with them.”

But it was all Palisades from that point.

“We pushed hard the first two sets, and maybe we woke the sleeping giant,” North said. “I don’t want to say we ran out of gas, but I think they kind of figured us out after that. They are a very smart team.”

Carson (18-15) never had a lead in the last two sets, when Palisades jumped out to big leads early and never looked back. The Colts came as close as 22-13 in the third set after an ace by Lala Malele before Palisades closed it out.

Carson had trouble returning serves in the fourth set, and made too many mental errors as Palisades pulled away.

“The girls still felt the adrenaline going into the third set, but as Palisades kept piling up the points, I think it got to us and we made more mental errors,” North said.

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Carson went through a lot of lineup changes from the start of the season to the end, but was able to get it together in time to become co-Marine League champions and make a run to the L.A. City Section Division I semifinals.

“The lineup on the court tonight was not the same as we had in the preseason,” North said. “It took a lot of determination and focus to get to this point.”

North’s message to the team after the match?

“This is a young team, and I told them they really set the bar high for next year,” North said. “We made more mistakes than Palisades, but showed we belonged on the same court as them, at least in the first two sets.”

The team came a long way to have a successful season.

“We lost nine seniors from last year, we started from the bottom,” Leui-Saole said. “We exceeded expectations. To make it this far is a blessing.”